


Common Core

by Saathi1013



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Other, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited, Secret Identity, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 15:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14311899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: Illya Kuryakin has retired from Russian intelligence, taking refuge in a small suburb of Chicago, working as a high school teacher under an alias.  Always on alert for the inevitable moment when his past catches up to him, his is a solitary life until two newcomers arrive in town: Gabrielle Schmidt, a shop teacher at his school, and Nathan Teller, who runs a small antique shop downtown.Despite his suspicions, he finds himself charmed by the two - until their presence causes unforeseen complications.(inspired by a kinkmeme prompt, which I will link to in the notes at the end of the story, as it's partially spoilery, but this fic does not entirely fulfill the requirements therein)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kristophine for her _spectacularly_ invaluable cheerleading, beta work, and first aid tips. Thanks also to TerrorInGlasses, whose insight into the teaching profession informed this fic and whose enthusiasm has been equally heartening.

 

 

The apartment building Illya has chosen to live in is unusual and somewhat old, or at least that’s what he’s been told. It will never cease to amuse him that buildings built less than a hundred years ago are considered _old_ in this country. He owns a straight razor older than this building, _pfaugh_.

He likes it, though. He likes that between the shitty soundproofing and the creaky floorboards, he can hear when someone walks down any one of the hallways. He likes the wide, open corridors with a clear line of sight to the exits on either end of the building, and he likes the dark basement with its rows of storage units, most of which have padlocks he can pick in a few heartbeats if he needs someplace to hide.

Also, it’s small enough that he knows all the residents by name. This is both blessing and curse, as it means they all know his name, as well. They know his name, his (slightly altered) age, his current profession, more snippets of his (wholly falsified) life story than he’s entirely comfortable with, and two of the hobbies he _genuinely_ enjoys, rather than the ones he professes to like as part of his assumed identity.

Not all of them care, of course. But they know anyway, because the very lovely, very sweet, very _nosey_ on-site manager, Rae, whose door is directly across the hall from Illya’s, has pried each and every fragment of information from him over the course of the five years he’s lived here. She’s not _pushy_ about it; she’s just so disarmingly chatty about her own life and the questions she peppers in amidst stories about her daughter and her husband and her old job at the library and the management company that owns the building and the goings-on of other residents and the neighborhood rabbits’ ongoing war of attrition against the community garden, that he finds himself responding despite his best intentions, every time.

 _Moscow_ , he has thought after more than one such encounter, _never trained me for such interrogation techniques_.

On the bright side (Illya is trying to teach himself optimism in his retirement), Rae’s chatter ensures that he knows as much about all of their neighbors as one would ever need to feel safe here. Or: as safe as an ex-Russian intelligence agent nominally hiding out from his old comrades _can_ feel.

Not least given that there have been eight attacks on his life in the last six years. Two occurred before he could get out of Russia – because he may be good, but his (former) peers aren’t _complete_ incompetents. They are merely morally bankrupt and dedicated to an organization that had exhausted Illya’s ability to justify his own participation in it. Three more attempts had been made during his somewhat circuitous journey here, to the mid-western United States, by way of China and India and Canada on several less-than-official means of transportation.

The sixth assassin had found him in Chicago; Illya had hoped the urban density would provide some cover, but he should have known they would follow that train of thought. The smart move, the move he had been taught was the best when attempting to evade pursuit, would be to change cities, switch to one in another country if possible, try again.

So Illya had done the opposite. He’d paid an acquaintance’s friend’s brother cash for a car that he’s pretty sure was stolen, drove it until it ran out of gas, wiped it clean, left it behind in a ditch, and hitch-hiked to the next town. After that, he’d bought a new vehicle from a more reputable source, and then headed to the closest greasy spoon. In the little foyer had stood racks of apartment guides for the area, printed on pulpy paper with cheap ink that blackened his fingertips and smeared all over the sides of his hands. He’d pored over the listings with a pen the waitress had lent him, his half-eaten banana cream pie getting warm and his third cup of coffee getting cold near his elbow.

After five full days of research, he’d moved into this place. It had come pre-furnished and with discounted rent due to the previous tenant having died there. “Honestly, we should give you the first month free, the money we’re saving by not getting all his things hauled out of here,” Rae had told him. “Your old place burned down, you said? Gosh, that’s _awful_ , I hope you were insured. My uncle used to smoke in bed, and we always used to say…”

Here, Illya is Ian Peterson; his mother’s maiden name had been Petrov, and he is, on occasion, a sentimentalist. As Ian, he’d gotten three years of peace, establishing his life and settling into his identity. His education license is semi-legitimate, in that he’d transferred a few falsified general-education credits to a nearby state university and ‘finished’ his studies there for a real degree. He’d taken all the final tests himself, done the student teaching hours he’d needed, the whole lot.

He will admit to some pride in this accomplishment. It might seem mundane compared to the skillsets he’d perfected in his first career, but building a real, lasting life in a new country is more of a challenge than creating the fleeting facade of one, easily discarded at the end of a mission. The worst violence he has to worry about is a fistfight in the hallway at the local high school, and the most suspicious he usually gets is when he thinks a term paper might have been plagiarized or one of the students is being bullied.

The career of bullies is short-lived at his school. He remembers, too well, feeling the need to respond to taunts about his mother with fistfights in the narrow alleyways behind his school in Moscow. These incidents had once been counted in his favor prior to his recruitment; his willingness to do harm, his skill in overpowering larger and more numerous opponents, his prodigal knack for causing the most damage with the least effort…

He’s relieved that those things are behind him. Conflict resolution is different now, all quiet words, carefully chosen, delivered at the right time to the right ears. One might not expect intelligence-gathering abilities to be useful in sorting out the social dynamics of a population of nine hundred thirteen-to-nineteen year olds, and yet.

This isn’t to say that he hasn’t retained the _other_ vocational skills in which he had once been extensively trained. They’ve sent two more assassins after him here; the first had found him largely by accident, and he’d been left alone for another year, so he’d thought he’d caught her before she could report in.

Six months ago, that theory had been disproven. But the agent they’d sent for him this last time had been so inept that Illya had worried that the man would expose himself and get caught by the police before he could do proper reconnaissance on Illya’s home.

 _Rae_ had commented on the strange car circling the block at odd hours, and she’s about as suspicious as the potted petunias she coos over every morning.

That last attempt had been _insulting_ , is what it had been. Illya’s entertained the idea of writing a strongly-worded complaint to his old bosses. Fruitless thought exercises like that kept him amused until he’d realized that they’d used him as a handy final test slash garbage disposal for one of their less impressive employees. That’s a bit better, though he hopes they don’t make a habit of it.

The school doesn’t pour foundations for new additions to the science wing _every_ year, after all.

 

* * *

 

lya wakes up five minutes before his alarm and rolls out of bed to shower and shave, detouring to flip the switch on the cheap 5-cup coffee maker he’d picked up at the corner drugstore.

When he steps out of the shower, he sighs at his clock radio, which is blaring static interspersed with music. Inevitably, this means he’ll get another complaint from the sixty-three year old woman next door about how the noise upsets her startling collection of budgerigars.

He considers jogging over to his gym before school, but decides against it, as he’s about to start a new unit on nutrition and should swing by the market. As he runs an electric razor along his jaw, he paces the perimeter of his apartment, checking the security and finding everything in place, from the deadbolts on the door to the coins on the window sashes to the talc on the white linoleum by the patio door to the decoy alarm console in the entryway.

It’s been a soggy week, so Illya grabs his umbrella on his way out, making sure the release mechanism for the telescopic baton in the handle works smoothly. Then he sets off to the market to buy vegetables for the advanced home ec classes he’s teaching in third and fourth periods.

Rae accosts him on the sidewalk, greeting him brightly from under her own umbrella while keeping one eye on her daughter. Maddie is happily splashing through the puddles from last night’s rain in little white rubber rain boots with multi-colored polka dots on them.

“...and it will be nice to have a new tenant, don’t you think?” Rae is saying. “That apartment on the other side of the lobby will finally stop being empty. I know you’ll like your new neighbor, she’s a lovely girl, with such a _dashing_ boyfriend… I think they might be a couple? I couldn’t tell. They were teasing each other at the apartment showing like, you know, they could be? or they could be old friends. Neither of them were wearing rings. They certainly didn’t look like siblings, though, so…”

Illya frowns. He hadn’t heard about any recent apartment showings, but to be fair, he has been more successful at avoiding Rae’s buttonholing lately. Damn, now he’ll have to add hacking the property management company’s records to his to-do list for the day.

And it’s chess club day, too. Double damn. He might be able to do it on his phone during one of his break periods, but the reception at the high school is terrible by design. It’s meant to help the students stay focused; it usually frustrates students and teachers alike when they have to rely on the sub-par wi-fi for research and other class resources.

He extricates himself with a self-deprecating smile and the handy excuse of needing to run an errand before school. He does tell her that he wants to hear _all_ about his new neighbor and the maybe-boyfriend when he sees her later, which is true. She’s so observant she could probably guess their shoe sizes from the one meeting. It’s odd that she hadn’t been able to figure out their relationship.

That’s what background checks are for, though – both official ones and the more thorough searches he’ll run himself once he gets their basic information. Thank goodness for the internet age. His job – his _old_ job – used to be much more difficult before he had Google and the darknet at his fingertips.

 

* * *

 

There’s a new substitute in the teachers’ lounge at lunch. He nearly mistakes her for a student, she’s so petite, but the ease and confidence with which she moves is genuine, not affected. She’s in a tshirt and baggy olive drab pants, which initially ping Illya’s alarms as _military_ until he recognizes them as the legs of a set of coveralls like what the janitors wear, the top knotted at her waist by the arms.

Her glance is sharp and then dismissive when she takes in the plaid button-down he’s wearing with well-worn dark wash jeans. This is good. He’s supposed to be unassuming, unimpressive – no easy feat when he’d arrived, with his height and the faintest trace of his Russian accent. He’d learned to dress and hold himself in ways that drew attention away from his stature, explained away his quirks of pronunciation as something he’d inherited from his immigrant parents.

It had taken two years of working at the school before people had stopped referring to him as “Ms. Leigh’s replacement, you know, the tall one in _home ec_ ,” with the kind of expression that commented very clearly how unusual it was to see a man in that role.

Now, the worst he has to deal with is the office manager’s persistent attempts to set him up with her cousin, who lives two towns over and “could use someone who can cook more than what comes frozen or in a can.” Not that Illya objects to men per se. He simply hasn’t met anyone – man or woman – about whom he felt so passionate that he’d subject them to the inherent complications of his life.

The new teacher leaves a dark, viscous streak on the counter as she leaves with her coffee and a perfunctory smile. Illya wipes it up and then, curious, brings the napkin up to his nose. _Motor oil. Hm._ He’d heard Lewis was thinking about taking paternity leave, but it had seemed more like idle gossip than a sure thing.

She could be an import from one of the nearby towns, but he’s familiar with all the regular fill-ins. She could be another newcomer to the town, though it's an odd time for it. Most people wait until spring has really settled in. Moreover, it’s surefire folly to assume coincidence; she’s likely his new neighbor, and the dual proximity to both his home and workplace trips all his alarms.

Whoever she is, she’d been a full foot shorter than he, but that’s no guarantee she isn’t a threat. He dumps out the coffee she’d made, gives the pot a good cleaning, and starts a fresh batch.

Just in case.

 

* * *

 

After school, he meets the usual handful of student members of the chess club in one of the art classrooms on the garden level, the high-set windows showing grass and a sliver of the gloomy sky. Most of the other rooms have individual chair desks, inconvenient and awkward, but the art room has wide, flat tables the right size to seat two pairs of players each. Also a safer location, with one side door leading to a supply room that exits into the disused fire exit going up to the roof, and the main door leading to the hallway, three stairwells within a ten second sprint.

Eric and Jun and Ava and David and Marcus and Ravi show up, but they play distractedly, going stir crazy with the last of the spring storms keeping them indoors after a long winter and spring break coming up less than two weeks away. Illya’s begun to resent the mid-semester breaks in fall and in spring; it hardly seems like he’s gotten the students engaged before his lessons are disrupted again. He misses the Russian quarterly system, and the person he used to be in that country stirs from its hibernation and laughs unkindly about the futility of nostalgia before he tucks it away.

When the rain tapers off and a few weak rays of sunlight start trickling through the clouds, he lets his students leave early with the names of a few famous games to analyze for next time. No use keeping them when they can’t focus. Besides, he has his own preoccupations to deal with.

 

* * *

 

It starts pouring again when Illya’s halfway home, and he squints down Main Street through the deluge, gauging whether his umbrella will hold up against the slant of the wind and the volume of the precipitation. He could probably take advantage of the awnings over the storefronts, as others are, but there’s also several blocks through residential streets to navigate.

It’s his shoes that decide him. He’s grown soft, perhaps, but soaked socks and trouser cuffs are an unpleasantness he’d rather avoid today. He makes his way to the end of the block, before his turnoff, and ducks into the nearest store to take advantage of potential warmth.

A chime of the small brass bell above the door announces his arrival, and he takes a moment to let his eyes adjust. The place is dim and crowded and smells heavily of dust and of mildew and of old books. It reminds Illya of the attic in the house where he’d spent half his childhood, before his father had lost his fortune and reputation in bad investments.

“May I help you?” a pleasant voice inquires, and Illya spots a figure in the back, deftly wending its way through the uneven aisles. It’s a man, but a large one, broad-shouldered with an equally-wide chest, a trim waist, and limbs that look like he spends his days rearranging all the furniture in the shop for fun.

He’s not as tall as Illya, but _still_. Illya grips the handle of his umbrella, thumb resting on the baton safety.

The stranger stops, head tilted in candid curiosity. There’s something cultured about him, something studied, his shirt too fine to be cuffed so casually above his elbows, his shoes too polished for someone who works in a dingy little antique shop.

“Do you work here?” Illya asks, catching sight of a sign above the register and remembering the name of who should be working here instead. “You’re not Paul.”

“No… But I bought this place from him last month, didn’t you see the notices in the window? We’re going to have our grand re-opening this weekend. Everything’s going to be discounted, and children who don’t break anything get a balloon.” The grin he gives to punctuate his jest is wide and charming and too practiced, a salesman’s smile or a con artist’s. Same difference, really. “Nathan Teller,” the man says, offering his hand, and despite himself, Illya finds himself swapping the umbrella to his other hand so he can shake Nathan’s.

“Ian Peterson,” Illya offers. “I work at the high school, down…”

“Oh, yes,” Nathan says. “I’ve already learned to watch out for sticky-fingered teens between four and five on weekdays. Not that I begrudge them; I had an acquisitive streak when I was their age,” he pauses, chuckling and gesturing gracefully at the cluttered space around them, “and to be candid, I didn’t outgrow it so much as learned how to make an honest living at it, but it’s the principle of the thing, don’t you think?”

“They’re testing boundaries,” Illya responds absently. “I’m sorry, I only wanted to get out of the rain, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It _is_ cats and dogs out there, isn’t it?” Nathan comments, looking past Illya’s shoulder. “And you’re no bother, business has been slow, though I’m hoping to give it a bit of a boost with the re-opening. Say, if you like, I can grab a chair for you. I think I’ve got a vintage Eames in the back, all plastic, won’t be bothered by the… damp.”

Belatedly, Illya realizes his umbrella is making a puddle that’s threatening to surround the wooden claw foot of a Victorian dresser, and that if he moves too vehemently, he’s likely to spray droplets over an amber-stained globe that still thinks the DRC is called the _Belgian Congo_. “Oh,” he says, tucking himself backwards into the doorway. “I’m sorry, I can wait outside, I don’t mean—”

When all else fails, he’s found that playing ‘tall man not always aware of his size’ covers any number of behavioral quirks.

“No, no,” Nathan says. “It’s nice to meet someone new. I recently moved here – which you might have already picked up on – and I don’t… well, I don’t have a social circle to speak of.” And the look he gives Illya next is more – what was the word he’d used? – _acquisitive_ than friendly.

Illya can feel his face heating up, and he shifts his own gaze to their congested environment, eyes assessing and cataloguing items according to utility by rote.

There’s a small mahogany box high up on a bookshelf, elevating a Bristol blue glass pitcher from the incomplete Wedgewood tea set around it. The label on the box is faded and peeling, but Illya can make out the word ‘Staunton’ in a vintage typeface. “Is that… chess set?” he asks, seizing on the diversion, not noticing he’s dropped the indefinite article until it’s too late.

Nathan doesn’t seem to pick up on it, though, busy looking for what Illya’s referring to in the jumble. “Oh, that?” he says, “No, no– or, yes, kind of, that’s the box. I’ve got the pieces in the back, and I’m trying to clean them up. They were in dreadful condition, the French polish was—” He stops himself with a laugh. “I’m sorry, do you play?”

“A little. I’m the faculty advisor for the chess club at the school,” Ilya responds.

“Oh, fantastic,” Nathan says, “Were you interested? Because it’s been an idle project until now; I can step it up if it’s going to a good home…”

“No, no,” Illya demurs, becoming aware that it’s quiet outside, the drumming of rain on the awnings and pavement dwindled away to the trickle of runoff and gurgle of drains. “I should be getting home,” he says, hand already on the door latch.

“All right. It was nice to meet you, Ian. Come back this weekend,” Nathan calls after him, a note of disappointment threading through his voice. “Or– anytime, really.”

When he gets home, Illya wonders what it was about Nathan that had allayed his initial suspicions. The man had been a swindler for sure, but so self-aware about it that it seemed like a joke he was letting his audience in on, a performance for his own entertainment more than for profit.

And as for his… _less_ than professional interest? Illya has his suspicions.

 

* * *

 

When he returns home, Illya checks his security safeguards then makes a beeline to his living room, pulling out the couch cushion and opening the hidden compartment in the hollow arm to retrieve the laptop he uses for shadier purposes.

He has two names to search. First, the potential threat from his workplace; she’s closer, and he’ll be damned if any of his students are put in danger.

 **Gabrielle Schmidt:** age 26, height 5’5”, blood type AB, and so on and so forth… grew up in a suburb of Detroit. Father a foreman at one of the automotive plants before the whole place closed down and most of the town’s jobs got sent overseas. She received a scholarship to MIT but turned it down to work part time at a local garage to help support her family while she attended trade school. Mother, off and on administrative assistant, died of heart attack when Gabrielle was 19, father now resides in assisted care living outside Indianapolis. She has ten thousand dollars of student loan debt and one credit card, infrequently used.

There is no sign of a second name on the lease she turned in, no photos of a man in her social media profile photos, no relationship statuses more recent than six months ago, when a vague _in a relationship with_ switched to _it’s complicated_ and then slipped away entirely a week later. He considers going through her private messages, but doesn’t. It’s a lot of work to go to, this much of a history, this consistent of a background, for a simple hit job.

He switches to his other suspect.

 **Nathan Teller:** age 32, height 6’1”, blood type A, et cetera… Cook County juvenile record sealed (Illya will dig that up later), convicted at 18 for shoplifting, at 20 for bank fraud, and at 24 for a whole laundry list of offenses, though none were violent or drug-related. He has taste that outstips his legal earnings, that’s all. Released a year later on a technicality, he _seems_ to have kept his nose clean ever since.

His social media is sparse, limited to a perfunctory sort of Facebook page and a recent flurry of Instagram photos promoting his new store, but Illya turns up dating profiles on both Tinder and Grindr. Nathan was fairly active on both, until his move.

Perhaps his interest in Illya was genuine? Illya is not unaware of his own appeal, though his looks hadn’t been a primary tool in his arsenal at his previous job. But here, his carefully-crafted ‘gentle giant’ demeanor, matched with ‘steady employment’ and ‘good with children’... _well_. He’s attracted interest before.

They could both be legitimate. Wouldn’t that be a relief.

Illya doesn’t trust it. He digs further into their backgrounds and credit history, noting the small business loan Nathan took out to buy Paul’s shop and the apartment space above it, their families’ presence on social media, their friendships with what look like real people, online and off…

Illya reheats some leftovers and continues his search while eating.

Nathan likes old films; back in 2014, he’d written a handful of posts on set design for a blog about mid-century modern furniture. Illya reads through them, finding the subject more interesting than it has any right to be. A sense of droll humor carries though each post that is distinct from the rest of the blog’s contents.

Gabrielle was a member of something called a ‘Power Wheels Racing League’ at a hackerspace in Detroit, and Illya finds himself smiling at the sight of her tucked into a souped-up miniature Ferrari, a helmet obscuring her features and padding protecting her knees and elbows as she zips around an obstacle course of tires.

Illya could ingratiate himself enough to be able to bug their homes, but he dismisses the idea almost immediately. Getting close to them would entail a whole host of complications, not the least of which being the attention of the town gossips, from whose scrutiny it feels like he’s only recently escaped.

He might bug the antique shop and Gabrielle’s classroom, though.

 

* * *

 

Illya doesn’t see either of the town’s new citizens until Friday, when he comes into his classroom in the morning to find Gabrielle precariously teetering on a stool, reaching for something tucked away on the top of the highest cabinet.

“...Miss Schmidt?” he asks.

Alarmed, she turns to look at him, the stool skidding out from underneath her and she yelps as she falls—

—right into Illya’s arms. “...oh,” she says, staring at him with rich brown eyes that match her tumble of dark hair. “Nice reflexes.”

“Hardly,” he says, letting go half a moment later than he probably ought to have. “Anyone could have predicted you were about to break your neck. What were you doing up there?”

“Student prank.” She points back up to the cabinet. Sure enough, he can see a blocky, metallic shape where usually dust resides.

“Ah,” he says with the wisdom of one who’s survived similar mischief, back when he was new. “Let me get that for you.” He pulls a proper footstool from beneath one of the lab benches along the wall and steps up, handing the hefty part down to her carefully.

“Thank you.” She smiles, taking its substantial weight with ease. She’s stronger than she looks. “You can call me Gaby, by the way. Miss Schmidt is for my students.”

“Ian.” He starts to reach out reflexively to shake hands before remembering that hers are full. He gestures to the machine part instead. “What is it?”

“Transfer case,” she tells him, her grin getting bigger. She has the faintest shadow of a dimple in her cheek. “Don’t you know anything about cars?”

“Not really,” he confesses. “I usually walk. I have a motorcycle, but,” he shrugs, “I only know basic maintenance for that.”

“Oh, what make?”

“A Métisse street scrambler,” he says, and is gratified by her low whistle. “Second-hand, not in the best shape, but it does all right.”

She lifts her eyebrows at him. “Please tell me you winterize it properly.”

“I do,” he replies. “At least, I think I do.”

Her eyebrows snap back down. “Oh no, that’s not right,” she declares. “Before you take it out, bring it by, I’ll take a look. And I’ll see if you know your way around well enough to deserve it.” She glances over his shoulder. “Oop, I’ve got a class in ten and another part to find. They left me clues, can you believe it? The smart-ass little punks. I’ll hunt you down about your Scrambler later, though, don’t think I won’t.” She tips him a wink and exits before he can get in another word, light on her feet for all the fifty pounds of metal she’s carrying.

Illya’s not sure how he’d have responded if she’d given him the chance. He has a hard time trying to sort out what he’ll say the _next_ time she corners him about his bike. Put on a proprietary air, maybe? But he’s already been equivocal about maintenance. He could stall, make excuses, but she seems the tenacious type.

The warning bell rings, and Illya remembers he’s got a stack of photocopied handouts sitting in his inbox. He can get to the office and back if he hurries, so he stows his bag under his desk and makes a dash for it.

 

* * *

 

Illya makes a point to stop by the antique shop on his way home. Nathan’s with another customer, an older woman who’s peering dubiously at a collection of tin toys in a display case, but he spots Illya and beams with a wave.

 _He is_ far _handsomer than he has any right to be_ , Illya thinks. Agents _ought_ to be nondescript. Not that he has any stones to throw in that regard; he stands out in crowds, but ‘tall’ can be worked around more easily than movie-star good looks. All Illya has to do is sit down, or slouch. He meanders through the shop, picking up small items and returning them to their places – along with small bugs which he tucks away in dusty corners of oversized furniture that seems unlikely to move soon.

“Come back for that chess set?” Nathan asks at his elbow, and Illya nearly drops the brass clock he’d been ‘looking at.’ “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle.”

Nathan’s cologne smells faintly of anise. Illya clears his throat. “...yes,” he replies. “I was thinking of giving it to one of my students.” Ava is shaping up to be a contender in the local tournaments, but she doesn’t have a set at home. Illya has loaned her one from the club’s supplies, but if she ends up in the spring finals, she deserves something to remember it by, besides a certificate. “When do you think you will have restored the polish?”

“No sooner than next week, I’m afraid,” Nathan says, regret in his voice. “The re-opening this weekend and all... Will you come? Even if the set isn’t ready? It would be nice to see a friendly face.”

Illya should say no. He has grading to do, and next week will come plenty soon. “...sure,” Illya finds himself saying anyway. Illya tells himself that it’s to keep an eye on his bugs, make sure they won’t migrate. Although unspoken, the excuse feels flimsy.

Nathan gives him a smile like a sunrise: predictable, but blinding nonetheless. “Excellent,” he says, clapping Illya on the shoulder and letting his hand linger for a moment.

Illya doesn’t want to leave, so that is exactly why he does, with a smile and a wave masking the growing sense of alarm he feels at his own errant impulses.

 

* * *

 

There is a moving truck in front of Illya’s apartment building when he arrives home. As he watches, two men – one stocky and clean-shaven, one lanky and bearded – carry a plastic-wrapped couch down the ramp and through the propped-open front doors.

It makes Illya’s skin itch, strangers strolling in and out of his building, the doors unlocked. A layer of security, peeled away without a second thought.

He ducks between the couch-lifters and the man behind them (greying, hatchet-faced and sharp-eyed, probably the supervisor) who’s carrying a tall floor lamp. Halfway through the lobby, he hears a familiar voice. “...Ian?” Gaby says, visibly taken aback. “What—?”

“Oh, _you’re_ the one moving in,” he replies brightly, as if he’s only finding out now. “I live…” he gestures towards his apartment “...across the way. So I suppose we’re neighbors, too.”

She tilts her head. Her hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail; a few strands have escaped and sweep behind her ears. “How random!” The surprise in her voice rings true.

“I guess.” He shrugs. They don’t get paid much, and this building _is_ both affordable and within walking distance to the school… He mentally stomps on that train of thought. He should be suspicious, not justifying too-convenient coincidences _for_ her. “Perhaps ‘serendipitous’ is the right word,” he offers.

Tension he hadn’t noticed before leaches from the set of her shoulders, and her wary grin turns to something more genuine. “Serendipity,” she replies. “I like that.” She looks behind her, at the movers heading back out for another load. “I’d invite you over for coffee and to share some of the school gossip – which teachers to watch out for, that kind of thing – but, well. My place isn’t in any state…”

“That’s fine,” he tells her. “I have grading to get to, anyway.”

It doesn’t occur to him until later that he could have asked for a rain check, or invited her over to his place. The thought of _inviting someone into his home_ sends his gut into a slow, uneasy churn.

No. Best he doesn’t. Even if she does turn out to be as mundane as she seems.

...‘mundane’ might not be the right word, either; he finds it as hard to believe as ‘random,’ where Gaby is concerned.

 

* * *

 

“How are you settling in?” Nathan asks someone, on the bug planted near his office. There’s a silent pause. He must be talking on the phone. “Did the movers cause any damage?” Pause. “Ah, damn, and here I thought I’d be able to replace something for you.” Pause. “Fair. Let me know if you need anything.” Pause. “Oh, business is fine. Slower than I’m used to, that’s for sure.” He laughs. Another pause. “Yes, he stopped by today.” Pause. “No, no number yet. Give me time. I have to play it more carefully in these small towns. What about you, has your dashing rescuer—?” Pause. “ _Neighbors?_ Oh, my, what are the odds.”

Illya doesn’t know what to make of it. Gaby and Nathan do know each other, that much is obvious. What they want from him is less so. If they plan to kill him, there are easier ways to go about it.

Sleep eludes him for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Illya drags himself out of bed a full hour and a half later than usual and decides to compound the offense by going to the gym, knowing it will be crowded at this time of day. Maybe he can pull something and have an excuse not to go to the re-opening of Nathan’s shop.

He is not that lucky, though he does work himself harder than he ought, trying to banish his misgivings and conflicting impulses to the back of his mind for a short while, at least. _To hell with it,_ he thinks to himself as he’s showering afterwards. _If they’re agents, then there’s one way to find out why they’re trying to get close._

_Let them try, and run them in circles while they do._

Thus resolved, he dresses in a soft grey t-shirt that’s half a size too small, well-worn jeans that accentuate his thighs, and an artfully-rumpled jacket in a deep burgundy that he knows sets off his eyes. He stops off at the cafe half a block away from the antique shop and convinces the barista he’s picking up a drink for a friend.

It’s not entirely a lie.

Of course she remembers Nathan. Of _course_ she remembers his order – tall americano with one sugar. She even remembers which pastry he likes.

Illya gets one of each, and a drink for himself, then continues on his way. It’s good weather, the first really warm sunshiny day all spring, no slush on the pavement or chill winds biting down people’s necks, and the sidewalk has drifting clusters of people enjoying the opportunity to be outside.

He doesn’t see Nathan at first for all the customers in the store. It’s no wonder he’s busy, with the large banner above the door and a bright red placard on the sidewalk, a small cloud of balloons anchored to a nearby lamppost. Between the weather and the sale, he ought to have anticipated needing a helper.

After a minute, Illya spots Nathan in the back, making his way to the till, carefully ferrying an armful of cut-crystal glasses while the woman behind him carries the matching decanters.

Illya makes sure to be at the counter when Nathan arrives.

“Excuse me– oh!” Nathan says, his polite mask slipping into something more open when he recognizes Illya. “Hello, Ian, sorry, let me—”

Illya allows him _barely_ enough room to slip past.

Nathan starts wrapping up the glasses in layers of newsprint with deft motions, chatting amiably with the customer, who seems to be angling for a steeper discount. Nathan gamely dodges the attempts, extolling the virtues of the set, their provenance and their value as future heirlooms.

When the woman strolls off with her paper bag of carefully-packed drinkware, Nathan takes a deep breath and lets it out, the kind of sigh that only harried service industry workers can muster. “ _Hi_ ,” he says, with feeling.

Illya holds up the americano and the pastry bag. “Did you get breakfast?”

“Toast and eggs, yes,” Nathan informs him loftily, then grudgingly adds, “...at five-thirty am, because I was having difficulty sleeping. I was worried that no one would show up, if you can imagine.” He takes a sip of the coffee and his eyes widen in appreciation, one eyebrow lifting.

“I think your barista has a crush,” Illya stage-whispers in answer to his wordless question. And from the look of it, she’s not the only one – several of Nathan’s customers are eyeing him with as much speculation as his wares.

Nathan laughs. “Ah, but _she_ didn't hand-deliver it, though, did she?”

“...no, she did not.” Illya lets his eyes show the grin he hides against the rim of his cup as he takes a swig of his own drink. “I should let you get back to work. But I’ll see you this week sometime about that chess set.”

“I look forward to it,” Nathan says. “Thank you for stopping by.”

He’s probably said it a hundred times to customers, but it sounds like he means it.

 

* * *

 

Illya passes back all the homework he’d graded over the weekend, to the usual chorus of tepid enthusiasm. A few students bring out their syllabi and start tallying their current grades; he suspects that they’re trying for scholarships and had hoped that his classes would be an easy A. Admittedly, calculating the nutritional value of meals for people with dietary restrictions isn’t AP Calculus, but there’s a trickiness to it nonetheless. A couple of them will find themselves disappointed.

It’s the struggling students he really worries about, the ones that are honestly trying but who visibly deflate every time he returns their marked-up quizzes. He does what he can for them. With two dozen students per class and as many units in each semester as he has to get through to meet core competency standards… it’s tough. He offers after-school study sessions, but most of them have extracurriculars and some of them have jobs.

(He thinks about what he was doing at their age, and it cements his conviction that no one that young should have to bear any responsibility for their family’s survival.)

Illya stays late in the narrow little office he shares with Liam, the Health & Human Sciences teacher, rewriting the study guide for the final in hopes that it will address some of the sticking points he discovered on the last few assessments.

When he’s done, he meanders over to the other wing, where he knows the garages reside for the shop classes. They’re as empty as he’d hoped, at this hour. Illya’s never had occasion to familiarize himself with the space, but he finds a few likely places to plant his surveillance devices. He hides them away from the heavy machinery and close to what looks like Gaby’s desk, which stands empty of clutter besides an ‘Indy 500 Centennial’ coffee mug and a few second-hand textbooks with a judicious number of post-it flags scattered through their pages.

As he turns to go, he spies a dog-eared photo tacked to a bulletin board: it looks like Gaby, scarcely older than their youngest students, all skinny and knock-kneed, several of her knuckles covered in band-aids. She’s standing next to an older man, the familial resemblance evident in the sweep of their dark hair and the tilt of their jaw, and behind them is some kind of vintage car, its hood open towards the camera. Gaby is holding a socket wrench and is wearing identical – if much smaller – coveralls as her father, a patch embroidered with her name safety-pinned above her breast pocket.

Illya reaches for his phone, intending to capture a copy of the photo to add to the file he has on her, but decides against it. It’s irrelevant, and only confirms what he already knows.

Still, the memory of it lingers long after he leaves.

 

* * *

 

“What are you doing for spring break, Mr. Peterson?” Jun asks, fidgeting with a captured pawn while waiting for David, her current opponent, to make his move.

“Reading,” he tells her. It’s what he always tells them about his personal life: reading and grading. It’s not too far from the truth, and it gives them nothing of interest to spin out into rumors or additional questions… most of the time.

“That sounds fake,” Marcus declares from the other table. “What are you _really_ doing?”

“I don’t have any plans,” he tells them. “So I’ll probably grade papers, clean my apartment, and read. Maybe sleep in.” He leans over to peer at Marcus’ board. “Your bishop looks vulnerable.”

Ravi crows with delight and steals the piece while Marcus groans.

There’s a soft knock at the door, and Illya turns to see Gaby, giving a little wave. “Good afternoon, Miss Schmidt!” The corner of her mouth quirks at his use of her last name, but students are present, so she lets it slide.

“Good afternoon, _Mister_ Peterson,” she replies. He walks over to her so that they can keep their voices quieter, less disruptive. “I thought, with the forecast looking so promising for the next few weeks, you might want me to take a look at your motorcycle? In case you wanted to take it out over the break.”

He smiles, leaning against the doorframe. “That sounds like an excellent idea,” he tells her. “How does Friday look for you?”

“Friday’s perfect. I’ll take you to the local garage I use… well, it’s more of a co-op workspace, but they have all the tools we might need. I’ll email you the address.”

Illya pulls out his phone. “Why don’t you text it to me? Might be useful to exchange numbers regardless, don’t you think?”

“Sure!” Gaby retrieves her own phone and they complete the little social ritual. Illya surreptitiously clones her device while he’s at it. “...anyway, sorry to bother you, but I wanted to catch you before the week was over, and things have been so hectic, what with me being new and all…”

“It’s no bother,” Illya assures her. “I’ll see you Friday.”

She nods. “Friday.” And with a last little wave, she’s off down the hall.

The students are uncommonly quiet when Illya returns to their tables.

“When did _you_ get a _motorcycle?_ ” Ava blurts out, her eyes wide.

Illya suppresses a sigh. “When I was _old enough_ ,” he tells them, already anticipating emails from parents.

“Are you dating Miss Schmidt?” Marcus asks.

“We are _not_ dating.” Which is technically true. “She’s lending her mechanical expertise. Now finish your games, and I’ll let you go home early.”

They subside reluctantly, giving each other mirthful glances.

 

* * *

 

Nathan isn’t at the antique shop the next time Illya stops by. Instead, there’s a girl behind the till. She’s in her early twenties, with a light brown complexion and a mass of dark, shoulder-length wavy hair.

“Afternoon,” she says in response to the ring of the bell, belatedly glancing up from where she’s doodling on a notepad.

“Hi…” he starts, then looks around, wondering if he’s somehow wandered into the wrong store. “I was hoping to talk to Nathan?”

“He’s not available at the moment,” she says smoothly, with the practiced air of a well-trained customer service professional. “I’m Mia. Could I be of any assistance?”

“...he was repairing something for me,” Illya tells her. “I can come back.”

“Oh, are you Ian? Ian Peterson? He left something for you, hang on.” She disappears into the back and returns with a paper bag. “There’s a note.”

Illya takes both, and unfolds the piece of paper. A business card falls out into his palm.

_Ian, Sorry to miss you, something came up. Please stop by again soon. — Nathan_

The business card is the standard one for the shop, with the phone number underlined.

“Was that what you were looking for?” Mia asks.

“Yes,” Illya replies absently. “Yes, thank you.”

It’s only as he’s halfway out the door that he realizes he hadn’t checked the contents of the bag. And Mia hadn’t asked him to pay.

 

* * *

 

Illya reviews the data he picked up from Gaby’s phone. She has the the usual cluster of email-document-sharing-scheduling programs on her phone, a few games, the social media apps he expects… and Snapchat, under a different alias. His eyebrows lift. With a quick cloning, he hasn’t skimmed much of her history, but he sets his system up to save any of her future communications to his own encrypted cloud-based server.

Searching the new alias, he turns up an old MySpace page that seems to have been scrubbed clean, save for a handful of photos of Gaby in her late teens and early twenties, with family and friends, at the beach, at a movie theater (caption: _saw the notebook! *swoons*_ ), at restaurants…

It occurs to Illya that in all the photos he’s seen of her, he hasn’t seen one that included Nathan. How long have they known each other? How did they meet? Their backgrounds don’t really overlap.

It’s puzzling. But what bothers Illya more is that he hadn’t noticed it before now.

 

* * *

 

Illya sticks to his usual schedule on Friday: first the gym, then school. It’s the last day of classes before break, so everyone’s distracted, including the teachers, but Illya sticks to his quiz schedule regardless.

“All the questions on this quiz,” he tells his students, “ _except_ for your name – that’s still mandatory – are extra credit for the semester.” A few of his struggling students perk up.

He thinks he’s doing okay.

It’s hard to tell. There are teacher evaluations throughout the year, of course, and he’s done fine on all of them, but on the other hand, he can’t sit down with his principal and say, _I used to be a spy and an assassin for the Russian government_ – _on a scale from 1-10, how well am I passing for a regular American citizen? Do you have any suggestions on how I could improve my performance?_

There are no metrics for this, besides his continued survival.

 

* * *

 

Illya’s phone buzzes as he’s packing up for the day in his shared office.

“Hot date?” Liam asks from his desk.

Illya scoffs. “When have I ever had a date?”

“I wouldn’t know, man, you don’t tell me _squat_. For all I know, you moonlight as an escort for lonely little old ladies.”

Illya laughs. “I like teaching too much to jeopardize my job like that. No, I’m just boring.”

“Yeah, but it’s the boring people you gotta keep an eye on. You know Jess in the English department? Rumor has it she writes risque romance novels under a pen name.”

Illya’s met Jess, but doesn’t know her well besides the routine background check he’d run on all his prospective coworkers. She _does_ write romance novels under a pen name. They’re well-reviewed, from what he’s seen. Illya’s not going to confirm the rumor, though. “That’s preposterous.”

“You laugh, but if she starts making Fifty Shades money and quits, I’m going to say ‘I told you so.’”

“Mm, if you say so.” Illya looks for a way to change the subject. “Any plans for the break?”

“Madison’s uncle has a cabin in Door County.” Madison is Liam’s wife; she works as a manager at the local Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and they’ve been married for four years. Madison’s the youngest of two children and her parents have a second mortgage on their three-bedroom house in a suburb forty miles to the northeast. “We’re going to drive up, spend some time on the lake. I’m probably going to go over my lesson plans for the summer session I’ve gotta teach. How about you?”

“Nothing special. Grading, reading. Might hit up the first farmer’s market this Saturday.”

“Ugh, you are _wasting_ your single years!” Liam has some blurry, badly lit photos from his own single years locked away from public view on facebook. If shotgunning beers is what Liam’s recommending, Illya’s not interested. He’s never liked being intoxicated. Maybe it’s from that time he’d been drugged and interrogated. Maybe it’s simply a vulnerability he can’t afford.

Either way: _hard pass,_ as the kids say.

Illya gives in and checks his phone. It’s Gaby. _Five-thirty?_ she asks, and provides an address.

 _Sounds good_ , he replies.

“Enjoy the lake,” he tells Liam, and heads off.

 

* * *

 

The ‘co-op workspace’ is a small, nondescript building in the industrial section of town. He’d have missed it but for the multicolored yarn-bombing on the tree outside, which draws his eyes to the small hand-painted sign above the glass doors. The garage door is open, so he parks his truck there and unloads his bike.

“Hey!” Gaby says brightly, strolling out from the garage. She’s wearing a purple t-shirt with some faded logo on it under paint-stained overalls. “Glad you found the place! You don’t mind signing a waiver, do you?”

Illya blinks. “...waiver?”

“It’s a formality. When members bring a guest, we gotta cover the group’s ass.”

Illya skims the form. It looks like a boilerplate indemnification for using the space and its tools. He declines to provide his email address, but signs the line at the bottom with a flourish. “There you go.”

“Sweet, thanks.” She takes the clipboard and pen back from him and puts a sticker on his shirt, between his heart and his shoulder. It has the hackerspace logo with the word “VISITOR” below it. “There you go. You’re all official.”

He grins. “I’m all official. Where should I park the Scrambler?”

She shows him; there’s a bright blue tarp set up on an open area of the concrete and an open toolbox, labeled “G. SCHMIDT” in red marker across a strip of duct tape on the lid. Illya glances around, spots an anvil and a small forge nearby and more machines and workstations further down. It reminds him of the fabrication unit at his old headquarters, except more haphazardly organized.

“Oh, do you want a tour?” Gaby asks, glancing up from her initial assessment of the Scrambler.

“Sure.” He’s got a couple bugs in his pocket that might go to good use here.

“Here’s the metalworking station – forging, shaping, welding. Only members can use this area, and only if they’ve been signed off on the equipment. We try to avoid nasty accidents. Woodworking is over here – same deal with the power tools. Down here is the CNC station, which is _super_ cool. We recently rebuilt the router, and everyone’s excited to see what it can do…” She continues on, leading him further into the space, pointing out the member storage racks and telling him about the open shop nights every Friday– “...hope you don’t mind, people will start trickling in in an hour or so…” –and the Open Crafting Nights every Monday. “...we usually do that in here,” she tells him, opening a door to a smaller, more finished space, with sewing machines and fabric lining one blue-gray painted wall. “This is our clean room, for fiber arts, papercrafts, electronics, that kind of thing. Stuff that needs to stay away from the shop dust, basically. And through there–” she points to another door on the south wall “–is the kitchen, where the molecular gastronomy nerds work their magic. I don’t know how they do what they do, but it’s pretty neat. They have Test Kitchen Buffets on the first Sunday of every month, if you’re interested. We also have soda and snack vending machines...”

“Wow,” he says, trying to sound overwhelmed by all the information. In truth, it’s just reiterating what he’d skimmed on the group’s website last night, but he has to stay in character. “How many people pitched in to afford all this?”

“We take donations, so the group didn’t buy everything,” she says, “but I don’t know how many people are full-time members. I’m new.”

“It’s impressive, though,” he tells her. A space like this takes a lot of work to maintain; doing so without government funding or military discipline must be especially difficult.

She beams, happily. “I know I enjoy it. Now, let’s take a look at this bike of yours…”

They run through the initial inspection with unhurried ease. Gaby has him pull out the manual to check a few of the recommended maintenance intervals against her own rough familiarity with the manufacturer. “...it looks good,” she pronounces at last, grease streaking along her arms past the end of the work gloves she’s wearing. “Though you’re going to want to keep an eye on those steering head bearings, they should get repacked sometime in the next six months.”

Illya nods agreement. “Will do… so where did you learn all this, anyway?” he asks as they start putting the parts back together.

“Oh, you know, I picked it up from my dad…” She gives an abbreviated version of the story he already knows, embroidering it with anecdotal tangents. “...and that’s how Mom found out I siphoned gas from her tank!”

Illya laughs, easily picturing the young Gaby he’d seen in the photo, caught in the laundry room with gasoline-soaked clothes stuffed into the washer while she adds too much soap to overcompensate for the tell-tale smell.

“She forgave you, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I was grounded for months,” she says. “But yeah, she got over it eventually.” Her voice goes soft and wistful at the end.

“You must miss her,” Illya says, without thinking. Without remembering if she’s _told_ him about her mother dying or not. “Must be hard to be away from home.”

Gaby chews on the inside of her lip. “I do miss her, but I’m not homesick… I don’t have a lot of attachment to Detroit, but she… she passed away when I was younger. It was pretty sudden.”

“I’m sorry.” Illya means it.

“It’s… it’s okay,” she tells him, tightening the last bolt with more force than is necessary.

“My mother passed away seven years ago,” he surprises himself by saying. “I moved away, started a new life… it was a little easier, that way. But it’s still difficult.”

It’s the truth, or as much of it as he can share. He doesn’t tell her how his father had killed himself soon after the family’s fall from grace, leaving Illya’s mother to raise him on her own before he’d found employment. He doesn’t tell her how keeping his mother safe and cared-for meant indenturing himself to people he’d grown to hate. He doesn’t tell her that his mother had died proud of him, because she’d never known the truth of his old work, and now he has to carry that lie with him for the rest of his life.

“Yeah,” Gaby agrees. “It’s difficult.” They pack up in silence, but it’s a commiserative, companionable kind of silence.

As she predicted, other members of the hackerspace start coming in as they’re finishing folding up the tarp. She greets them all pleasantly. “Do you want to stick around, see some of the projects people are working on?” she asks Illya.

“I was thinking of dinner,” Illya says. “Would you like to join me?”

Gaby looks conflicted. “I signed up for a class on the laser cutter tonight,” she says, her voice full of regret. “Rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Illya tells her, and the smile she gives him sends warmth through his chest.

 

* * *

 

“Who was that guy you brought in earlier?” a woman’s voice asks, over the bug Illya planted in the hollow handle of Gaby’s toolbox.

“That’s Ian, he teaches at my school,” Gaby replies.

“He’s adorable. Kind of got a Ryan Gosling thing going, right?”

“I _know_ ,” Gabby says, sounding aggrieved. “My inner sixteen-year-old is _dying_. But I shouldn’t get involved. I know him from work. It wouldn’t be professional.”

“Screw professionalism,” the woman says. “Climb that man like a tree.”

Gaby laughs, and Illya turns off the transmission, ears burning.

 

* * *

 

The smell of candied almonds, cashews, and walnuts wafts across the aisle as Illya browses, almost tempting him from his search for the local honey vendor he frequently patronizes at the market. There’s not much produce yet, this early in the season, but there are local cheese stands, starter plants in flats ready for gardeners, stalls filled with handmade jewelry and fiber arts, and soapmakers with their own fragrant wares.

Distracted by the sight of a cotton-candy vendor spinning a massive cloud of swirling pink and blue, Illya bumps into someone next to a bakery table. “Oh, I’m sor— Nathan!”

It’s the man himself, an empty canvas tote looped around one elbow. “Ian! Since it’s you, you’re forgiven.”

“I thought I’d be at your store today.”

Nathan beams. “I’m taking a break for a few hours. You might have noticed that I hired help, so I should be covered…”

“I was sorry to miss you,” Illya admits. “But Mia seems nice.” “She is, and whip-smart, too. Graduated from college at the end of last semester and is looking to stay afloat while she hunts for something in her field.”

“What field?”

“Art history, if you can believe it.”

Illya makes a sympathetic face. No job is surefire, in this economy, but that sounds like playing against a stacked deck. “Good luck to her.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m thinking. Still, you never know. I’m hoping to keep her through the end of the summer, at least.”

Illya gestures to the array of pastries next to them. “What looks good today?”

“I was thinking about getting a loaf of sourdough…” Nathan says, then pauses. “But now that you’re here, I think I’ll ask for your number.”

It’s so smoothly delivered that it takes Illya a second to catch up. “...oh. _Oh._ ” He looks away from the rows of shiny-glazed eclairs and back to Nathan. “Certainly.”

Nathan already has his phone out. Illya puts down the bag of jarred preserves he bought a couple aisles back and retrieves his own. It’s not that he doesn’t already have Nathan’s phone numbers – both of them – but he has to _pretend_ not to. It’s a handy way to clone his phone, too.

“So I hear your school’s out of session for a week,” Nathan continues when they’re done. “What will you do with all that free time?”

“I don’t know yet.” It’s the truth.. Now that his Scrambler has the stamp of approval, he might take it out for a couple of days. Get some space, clear his head.

“Fair enough,” Nathan replies. “Hey, you’ve been here longer than I have. Why don’t you show me around the market, tell me what’s good.” He drops his voice. “Tell me the town gossip.”

Illya laughs. “Okay, come with me.” He introduces Nathan to the apiarist who installs and harvests from beehives in volunteers’ backyards. “...one of these days, I’ll get Chris in to talk to my kids, probably during the unit on urban gardening.”

“Weren’t you trying to get space on school grounds so the kids can plant their own?” Chris asks.

“Still fighting the athletics department,” Illya tells him, shaking his head.

Nathan turns away, holding a jar of reddish-amber honey up to the sunlight. Chris widens his eyes and gives Illya a surreptitious thumbs-up. Illya doesn’t know how to respond to that. He smiles crookedly and pretends to look at some of the beeswax candles on an upper shelf. “These are new.”

“Yeah, the harvest was kind of thin last year, so I’m branching out. I’ve got lip balm and hand salve, too.”

“I’ll take your seasonal variety pack,” Nathan announces. He gives Illya a winning grin. “Since it comes so highly recommended.”

He purchases his wares and Illya pays for the single autumn jar he came for. Chris tosses in a lip balm for good measure.

“I like your friend,” Nathan says after they leave.

 _We’re not friends_ , Illya nearly says. But he’s known the man for years, chats with him every time they run into each other, has met his husband and been invited to his barbecues… He’s only gone to one of the latter, last fall, but still. Nathan might be right. _Huh._ “He’s a good man. So’s his husband. They’ll probably stop by your store, now that he’s met you. He makes it a point to know practically everyone in town.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Nathan says. “Now, tell me, are these kebabs any good…?”

They don’t get lunch at the kebab stand, but at the gyro cart one aisle over, and eat on the folded-down hatch of Illya’s truck. Illya asks Nathan where he’s from, because it seems the thing to do.

Nathan tells him about Elgin. “...my grandfather worked at the watch factory there, until it closed,” Nathan tells Illya. “I think that’s where my appreciation for antiques came from. He had a collection of pocket watches… I’ll show you the one I inherited, sometime. The engraving on it is _superb_.”

 _I do not understand how people get attached to so many possessions_ , Illya does not say. He could walk away from his apartment and all the objects in it, without a glance behind him. Leaving his students might be more difficult, but he could manage it if he had to. It would be for their safety as much as his own.

“I have a watch, too,” he confesses. “My father… lost a lot of money, when I was young. Everything worth anything, we had to sell. What we had left, we used until it wore out, sometimes past that. But he kept this watch...” He lifts his arm, displaying the timepiece, _Победа_ printed visibly across the face. It’ll be okay; his parents are supposed to have been immigrants. It doesn’t stand out. “It’s all I have of him.”

The only other thing Illya has from his old life is the straight razor in his boot, and that was given to him by his mentor when he proved to be more skilled with silent tools than with firearms. Illya’s not about to show _that_ off.

Nathan looks sympathetic. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is,” Illya says, shrugging. “Growing up like that… made me value knowledge – it gives you tools that no one can take from you. I pass those on, when I teach.”

Nathan’s expression lifts, shades into something like appreciation and… _fondness_. Illya’s breath catches. “I like that,” Nathan says. “I like that very much.”

Whatever Illya is about to say dies in his throat as he spots a man sitting in a sedan one row over. He’s frowning down at his phone, but something about him seems familiar.

 _Late forties_ , Illya thinks. _Greying hair. Sharp profile…_

It’s the hatchet-faced man from Gaby’s moving company.

“I need to get home,” Illya says abruptly. “I’m sorry, I forgot I had plans this afternoon.” He attempts a conciliatory smile, but Nathan’s baffled expression doesn’t clear. “I _am_ sorry,” Illya tries again, meaning it. “Believe me, your company is _much_ more enjoyable than my obligations.”

That seems to do the trick. Nathan gathers up his bag and the trash from his lunch. “The feeling is mutual,” he replies. “...would you mind if I called you?”

Illya stops, halfway to the door of his vehicle. “Not in the slightest,” he says.

In the meantime, he has some unpleasant business to attend to.

 

* * *

 

As far as Illya can tell, the man in the sedan doesn’t follow him home. But then, he already knows where Illya lives, so he doesn’t need to do so. He can take his time, observing Illya’s behavior, finding the weak spots in his routine…

The likelihood that Gaby and Nathan are also agents drops precipitously. They’ve each been alone with him – in neutral, semi-public locations, to be fair, but convenient spots for a quick hit or abduction if need be. Gaby sleeps under the same roof, and Nathan both lives and works on Illya’s main route to and from the school. What’s more, neither have pried for personal information. Illya wasn’t drugged when he and Nathan ate together, and Gaby hadn’t sabotaged his motorcycle.

If they wanted to try anything, they’d have done it by now. That means the hatchet-faced man is the more pressing threat.

Illya gets into his apartment and checks all the security measures twice. It all seems undisturbed. Moving on autopilot, he grabs his go bag from the hall closet and gets the laptop from his couch, slipping the latter in his everyday messenger bag, which he slings over his shoulder. He leaves his phone on the kitchen counter.

Pulse racing, Illya stops before he steps out into the hallway.

He wonders why his first instinct is to run. It hasn’t been, in the past; he’s handled these things before, set traps and waited as his own bait, dispatching threats with the single-minded focus of a spring cleaning.

 _Gaby and Nathan_ , he realizes, pinpointing the source of the cold fear creeping through his veins. This man has seen him with both of them. _I need to draw him out, away from them._ If they’re threats, too, he can’t afford to be flanked. If they’re not, he doesn’t want them at risk.

He leaves the apartment and gets on his motorcycle.

 

* * *

 

Illya heads west on the highway, racing past semi trucks and delivery vans and farmers’ oversized or rusted-out pickups and the occasional sedan. Everyone has someplace to go, except Illya.

What he needs is a nice little corner of nowhere, all to himself.

It only takes a few hours to find it: a rest stop in the middle of Iowa, closed for construction. The entrance ramp is blocked off with a wide orange fence that he maneuvers around, rolling his bike along the gravel shoulder when there's no one in sight in either direction for miles. The building itself is set back from the highway, at the end of a narrow road that wends through carefully-cultivated clusters of oak and maple, creating a sense of quiet retreat after the numbing sameness of long stretches of pavement in between wide open agricultural fields tilled for spring planting.

Illya leaves a sign for his pursuer to find, if he's looking. If he's as good as he ought to be.

The place is empty, the workers off for the day, scaffolding surrounding the half-built front facade. Fortunately, the facilities still work, so Illya uses those while he waits. The water in the sinks is ice cold, and it takes a few tries for the motion sensor on the soap dispenser to work, but it's better than nothing. He splashes water on his face, too, for good measure, and it drips like melting icicles down his neck.

The vending machines aren’t plugged in. That's fine; he doesn't have change anyway. He eats a protein bar from his go bag and assesses the tools at hand. Most of what he's packed is for survival, not combat. Extra IDs and insurance cards under aliases, cash and prepaid credit cards, a couple of changes of clothing, a first aid kit and some hygiene supplies…

He's got a gun with a silencer, but limited ammunition. The weight of bullets adds up, the more you carry, and they can be traced. Too much trouble.

He picks the lock on the maintenance closet. It holds an assortment of cleaning supplies, mops and rakes and shovels, shelves of nondescript bottles and canisters, and bags of ice-melting chemicals stacked next to a rolling bucket. A first aid kit, dusty with disuse, hangs on the wall.

There's a faint scraping noise on the concrete outside. Illya unscrews the handle of a push broom and retreats into the ladies’ room.

Illya could go to the last stall, get up on the toilet seat to conceal his location, but it won't buy him more than a few seconds. Besides, fighting in close quarters constrains his reach and leverage. He ducks around the corner, waiting outside the first stall, stooping low, eyes trained on the mirrors.

His pursuer steps into the room, gun drawn. Illya sweeps the broomstick at his ankles, making him stumble – no one searching for a tall man watches their feet very carefully – and uses the moment's advantage to strike upward with his free hand, knocking the man's aim away.

With one foot, the man stomps downward, looking to disarm Illya, but Illya tightens his grip and yanks upward. Between the two opposing forces, the wood cracks, leaving a short staff in Illya’s hand, one end splintered into a jagged point.

Quick as a flash, the man's hand comes down, slamming the butt of the gun against Illya's temple. His vision goes blurry. The man strikes him in the gut, and he doubles over, the broomstick falling to the tile with a clatter.

Before the man can aim his gun again, Illya rushes him, closing the already-scant distance between them, bearing him back and back until they hit the wall. The man’s head cracks against the corner of the metal hygiene dispenser hanging there, and he goes limp as a rag doll in Illya's arms.

Illya picks him up and throws him bodily against the sinks, setting off half the motion sensors. Crumpled on the floor, the man's strained wheezing is barely audible over the sound of the water.

Illya crosses the room and drags the man up to his feet by the front of his shirt. The man flails, shattering the full-length mirror behind him.

Illya holds him fast. “How many of you are there?” he asks.

The man is alone here, that much is evident. The sounds of their struggle would have brought reinforcements if there had been any.

There may be others back in town, though.

“Plenty,” the man replies, smiling. There's blood at the corner of his mouth. “Enough for you and both your new friends.”

“ _Why?_ ” Illya snarls, unaccountably angry. He slams the man against the wall again. More glass falls. “Why a whole team, after all this time?”

“You weren’t a threat before,” the man wheezes. “You are now.”

 _What?_ Illya thinks. _I’m not a threat._

Before he can follow that train of thought, something sharp catches the light, and equally-bright pain lances through his side.

_Broken mirror._

Gritting his teeth through the agony, Illya glares at the man.

“However many they sent,” he hisses, “they underestimated.” And then he snaps the man's neck, as swiftly as breaking the broom.

He lets the body drop to the tile and pulls open his coat, rucking up his shirt to check the wound. The glass seems to have sliced rather than stabbed, his jacket and the man's palm taking the brunt of the force, but it's still bleeding pretty badly.

Illya wrestles the automated dispenser until the lock breaks so that he can pull the paper towel straight off the roll. He washes out the gash as best he can and then goes back to the maintenance closet, pulling down the first aid kit. He wipes down the area with a betadine swab then closes the wound with butterfly strips.

_They think I’m an active threat. Why? What’s changed?_

Gaby and Nathan?

_Do they think I’ve told them something?_

It’s not unusual for attachments to cause complications, for agents to lose discipline around (or deliberately confide in) people they’ve become close to. _I haven’t known them that long._ But he _has_ let down his guard, shared carefully-curated snippets of his past with them… _Is that enough?_

He tapes down gauze over the area to minimize seepage and dry-swallows four ibuprofen from two little paper packets.

 _I could keep going_ , he thinks. _Keep riding west until I find a town with an airport._ The prospect holds a certain appeal.

Except… there’s the matter of the team back in town. He doesn’t like leaving loose ends.

Illya grabs a tarp from one of the scaffolds outside and wraps the body up, carrying it out to the dumpster. Finding it half-filled with broken sheetrock, he shifts some of the pieces to act as camouflage. Then he goes back inside and grabs another broom, sweeping up all the glass and disposing of it the same way.

One last trip to scrub the place down with bleach, and he's done.

Illya washes his hands again, the chill of the water welcome this time on his stinging knuckles and the heated flush of his face.

With the adrenaline wearing off, he just feels _tired_.

How long will he have to keep doing this? How many more agents will he have to dispose of before one finally succeeds?

He gets back on his Scrambler and heads east.

 

* * *

 

It’s late when he gets back to his apartment, well after nightfall, most of the lights in the building out for the evening. Gaby’s windows are dark. Illya hauls himself off his bike, limbs stiff and exhausted.

He wants to knock on her door. He wants to see her, see that she’s okay.

He should go to bed.

The front lock sticks when he turns the key, hinges giving a familiar soft creak when he opens the door. Everything appears as he left it.

A dull throb in his side reminds him that he knows better than to trust that.

His phone sits on the kitchen counter. He picks it up and the screen flashes a notification: _2 new text messages._

 _Thank you for lunch_ , Nathan’s message says, and the next: _We should do it again sometime._

Illya wants to reply to him, but it’s after midnight.

He checks his security measures – all clear – and goes to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

“Good morning, Ian!” Rae greets him as he’s leaving his apartment. Illya tugs at his sweatshirt, making sure it covers the fresh bandages on his waist. She’s standing in her doorway. Next to her, Mrs. Saeed glances his way with a terse but not unfriendly smile. “Have you noticed any noise coming from apartment 5? Nura here was telling me that Ms. Schmidt was making an awful ruckus yesterday...”

Illya’s breath catches, but he musters a smile. “I’m afraid I was out late last night,” he replies apologetically. “So I didn’t hear anything.”

“Oh, well, I’ll talk to her when she gets back, then,” Rae says. “She said she needed to pick something up downtown. I’m sure I’ll see her in an hour or so…”

“When did she leave?” Illya asks.

“Mm, maybe ten minutes ago…?” Nura was probably waiting for her to go before knocking on Rae’s door to complain.

He really does appreciate having a ready-made information network in his building. It’s terribly _useful_ sometimes. (Other times, he has to put his garbage bags in his truck and drive them to a convenience store’s dumpster after hours. So it’s a mixed blessing.)

“I have a few errands to run, too,” Illya says, sidling towards the exit. “If I see her, do you want me to mention it?”

“Oh, oh, gosh, no,” Rae tells him. “I can handle it. But tell me if you have any issues, will you?”

“Absolutely,” he tells her, and makes his exit.

Illya considers taking his bike, but his wound still aches despite the triple dose of naproxen he’d taken earlier. He climbs into the truck – getting a sharp twinge to the side anyway – and evaluates all the pedestrian routes to town.

_Wait. There’s an easier solution._

He texts her: _Hey, what are your plans for today? I was thinking of calling in that rain check. Lunch?_

There's a minute before she answers.

 _I’m out shopping_ , she replies. _But lunch sounds lovely._

_Fantastic. Where?_

_At the deli on main street, the one with the blue and white striped awnings?_

_I know the one._ He pauses and thinks for a minute. _See you in 45?_

_Sounds great!_

He can catch two birds in the same trip: check on Nathan, then on Gaby. See if he can spot anyone surveilling them. The fact that he hadn’t previously noticed _an entire team in town_ speaks to either the quality of the agents sent after him, or to him losing his edge.

Or to his distraction.

None are reassuring options.

 

* * *

 

Nathan is dusting an upper shelf from atop a stepladder when Illya enters the shop. Something jazzy and upbeat plays from a radio near the register, so he might not have heard the bell above the door. Illya tries very hard not to notice the arc of his shoulders, the line of his back, the…

He clears his throat. “Good morning, Nathan!”

“Oh, good morning!” Nathan climbs down. “What brings you by today?”

Belatedly, Illya realizes that he doesn’t have an excuse to be here. He gives up. “I was meeting a friend for lunch and thought I’d say hello.”

Now only four feet away, Nathan’s eyes are very blue in the light streaming through the front windows. “Hello, Ian,” he says, voice quieter, less sleek around the edges. “I’m glad you stopped by. I—”

The bell above the door chimes brightly, and Illya turns to see Gaby.

“Oh, Ian!” she says. “I see you’ve met Nathan!”

Illya’s stomach sinks before he registers why: if they _are_ civilians, ordinary people who’re _friends_ with each other, each with their own interest in him (which he has been encouraging), then…

 _Oh_ , he thinks. _Oh, no._

“...yes, Gaby, Ian here is the customer I was telling you about,” Nathan is saying. Illya hears this as if from a great distance, his pulse thrumming in his chest.

“Really?” Gaby replies. “Because he’s the coworker _I_ was telling _you_ about.”

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Illya manages.

“Clearly,” Nathan comments dryly.

“...oh, now we’re being unkind,” Gaby says. “We already knew, Ian. We just didn’t know if _you_ knew.”

“I... did not,” Ian replies stiffly.

“That leaves us with a conundrum, however,” Nathan muses.

“It does?” Gaby asks, crossing her arms across her chest, one eyebrow lifting.

“It does.” Nathan’s voice is firm on this point. “You see, you have the better kitchen – gas ranges are the only way to go – but I have the bigger dining room, so where _are_ we all going to have dinner tomorrow night?”

They turn to Illya. He glances between them both, flabbergasted. “I’m sorry?”

“Dinner? Tomorrow?” Gaby asks. “My place or Nathan’s?”

Nathan holds up one finger, adding another point: “I’m cooking, in case you’re wondering.”

“Then… Gaby should host,” Illya answers slowly, like a student who’s been called on after getting caught napping in class. He feels like he’s missing something. “... _all_ of us?”

“Certainly,” Gaby says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “We’re all _friends_ , aren’t we?” The way she bares her teeth in a smile when she said ‘friends’ only makes Illya’s confusion deepen.

“...we are?”

“We are,” Nathan confirms. “And we’ll all have a friendly dinner tomorrow night, get to know each other better. Sound like a plan?”

“...yes,” Illya says. He doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, but he doesn’t intend to let the opportunity pass him by. “Sounds splendid.”

“Excellent,” Gaby tells them both, looking pleased. “Now let’s go get lunch, Illya, you look a little peaked.”

 

* * *

 

They place their orders and take one of the little tables in the back, where the noise of the noonday rush isn’t so bad. Illya watches the crowd with half an eye, trying to pick out anyone who doesn’t belong, anyone who could be watching them, who could be—

“I hope you’re not upset,” Gaby says, halfway through her corned beef sandwich, which Illya regards with mild horror, hoping that Nathan has a better taste in menu for the next day’s… date? _Is it a date? With_ both _of them?_ “I get tired of playing these little games, sometimes. Nathan would have strung it out another week or two, and pfft, there all our free time would have gone. _Much_ better to have it settled before classes start up again, don’t you think?”

“ _Da_ ,” Illya replies absently, then coughs as if his chicken salad on rye is trying to choke him. “I mean, yeah. I don’t particularly enjoy playing games myself.” It’s true; he used to find being undercover increasingly uncomfortable, like wearing a suit two sizes too small. The longer the mission, the more uncomfortable he’d get. Easier to get in, do his job, and get out.

The saving grace of his current life is that it is _his_ , something he’d chosen freely and built by himself, for himself. Even if he has to lie about his past every now and then.

Her eyes twinkle merrily at him as she sips her soda. “You could’ve had me fooled.” She places her hand on his where it rests by his plate. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re not an easy man to read, Ian?”

He replies with a tight, rueful grin of his own. “I’ve found it… _safer_ , to be reserved.”

“Oh.” She digests this for a moment. “Is there anything I can do, to make you feel safe?”

Illya looks down at his plate, at his mostly-finished sandwich and the glass of iced tea beside it. He’s never given much serious thought to what it might take, to feel comfortable letting his guard down. To become… intimate with someone here, on any level. When he thought of his future, it hadn’t included significant attachments.

They seemed like a luxury he wouldn’t be able to afford.

“...I’ll let you know,” he tells her at last.

“You do that,” she says, squeezing his hand with hers and letting go. His fingers feel suddenly cold, where she’d been touching him a second ago. “Meanwhile, _I_ am going to think very hard about that brownie I saw in the case. I hear they’re very good here.”

“They are,” Illya tells her, grateful for the change in subject.

 

* * *

 

“...I’m so glad you understand the difference between a reproduction and a giclee print,” Nathan is telling Mia at the shop while Illya listens in over his surveillance devices. “You’re a godsend, you know. I can’t believe how easy it was to find you on such short notice!”

A thought occurs to Illya, and he pulls up a new tab in the browser on his laptop while the conversation continues.

“ _I’m_ glad to have found a place to put that knowledge to use, Mr. Teller,” Mia replies. “It may not be a museum gig, but I’m happier here than I’ve been anywhere else.”

‘Mia’ is actually Ana Micaela Medrano-Orozco, according to the employment forms Nathan’s filed for her. She’s 24, and her family moved to this town when she was three.

“You worked _mass market retail_ before this,” Nathan drawls disdainfully. “I can’t say that’s a high bar.”

Illya finds records on all her previous jobs – retail, as Nathan had said – and her full educational background. She’d attended high school where Illya now teaches, and graduated from the same college he had, ten miles to the northeast. He turns up photos in the online yearbook from her time in varsity softball, and the local newspaper has an article on her making the semifinals in the regional spelling bee. She seems legitimate.

Over the transmission, Nathan and Mia are laughing.

 

* * *

 

Illya tries to work on his grading, really he does. He’s got it down to a science, an assembly line-style process that allows him to stay focused and get through heaps of quizzes in a fair amount of time.

It doesn’t help. Errant thoughts keep tugging him off-track.

 _What will I wear?_ turns into the dawning awareness that he hasn’t done laundry in over a week, and that his favorite button-down shirt – which he usually saves for school open houses, dance chaperoning, and student play openings – needs badly to be ironed. And oh, _damn_ , does he even want to wear _that_ tonight, or does he have something else—?

He starts to sort through his hamper and stops, feeling defeated. He carries the whole thing down to the laundry room in the basement, the still-healing wound in his side protesting the exertion. Since it’s the middle of a weekday, the machines stand idle, and he takes the opportunity to load two of the three.

 _Friendly dinner_ , he thinks with derision – at himself, at the vague phrasing, he’s not sure – _what does that_ mean?

The only way to find out is to go.

He could cancel. He could say something came up. He does have more important things to worry about, after all. But if Nathan and Gaby are being targeted, too, then this is a good opportunity to see if he can spot the invisible noose that he can feel, slowly tightening, poised to strangle the life he’s built here.

If they are targets, too, perhaps he can find a way to warn them. Or ask them if _they’ve_ seen anything unusual.

 _Why would they be targets?_ The thought brings him up short as he carries his basket back up the main staircase. _Because of me._ It’s the obvious answer, but it doesn’t settle quite right against his suspicions. He still has difficulty believing that their arrival is coincidence, that their dual proximity to him is solely due to ‘serendipity.’

If they are agents, and they aren’t trying to kill him – and they are also being targeted by his former agency, then… why? Who sent them, and what do they want?

_The only way to find out is to play along._

Rae’s brother, Mike, is carrying a garden hose across the foyer when Illya emerges from the stairwell. Illya gives him a distracted wave. “Hey,” Mike replies. “I’m doing some landscaping. Watch your step out there.” He lives at the end of the hall on the second floor and handles odd jobs around the building for a discount on his rent. Illya hopes he never has to ask for his help; he’s made too many modifications to his apartment he doesn’t want to have to explain.

Easier to google ‘how to fix a garbage disposal’ and spend a couple hours handling it himself.

 

* * *

 

Illya gets through most of his grading, with effort. He finishes his laundry and does his dishes and checks on his surveillance devices – not just the ones he’s planted near Gaby and Nathan, but also the ones he has in the teacher’s lounge and in the hallways of his apartment building.

He runs a few license plates from the parking lot cameras he has installed around his apartment and the school. They don’t turn up any useful leads.

His phone chimes. _Will you bring wine tonight?_ Nathan’s text reads. _Pinot noir or a dry gris if you prefer white._

Illya finishes ironing his shirt and hangs it up, grateful to have something else to do.

 

* * *

 

Illya texts Nathan from his car. _At the store,_ he types. _Do you need anything else?_

_Just your charming self._

Illya huffs a laugh. That’s laying it on a bit thick. Nathan must be in a good mood.

A mid-size SUV glides past, driven by a mousy woman with sharp eyes that meet his for a moment then skitter away. Illya’s skin prickles, and he twists in his seat to catch the license plate. He needs to get home to run it.

He has an hour before he needs to be at Gaby’s. That’s all right. He can dash in and—

Sandra, the fine arts teacher, is rolling a loaded cart out to her car. “Ian! Fancy meeting you here. Enjoying your break?”

“Yes, I—” He thinks quickly. "–I have a date tonight, have to pick up something—”

“A date!” She beams delightedly at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention dating before! Is it anyone I know? Teaching doesn’t give us much opportunity to _meet_ people, does it?”

“Not usually, no,” he says with feigned good cheer. “But I really ought to—”

“Oh, yes, don’t let me keep you. Good luck!”

“Thank you,” Illya says, already moving. “Have a good break!”

“You too!”

That’s done it. The gossip mill will work overtime regarding his social life for the next few months. If Illya remains silent, they will all assume his ‘date’ went poorly, and he’ll have to fend off any number of set-ups from well-meaning acquaintances intent on consoling him.

Illya suppresses a groan. Things used to be so much _simpler_.

(He steadfastly ignores the low-level thrill of anticipation that’s been buzzing under his skin all day. It’s been a long time since he felt this way.)

 

* * *

 

The license plate from the SUV is registered to an accountant named Meredith McKay, whose driver’s license photo matches the face he’d seen, and whose background is solid, if unremarkable. Inconclusive, really. She’s so nondescript that it could all be falsified, or they’d simply found a local that looks like their agent and swapped her out.

His phone chimes. _Come over whenever you’re ready,_ Gaby’s text reads. _The door’s open._

Illya gives himself a last once-over in the mirror, takes another couple of pills for the pain in his side, checks that his razor is secure in his boot, and makes sure that his phone has free memory in case he wants to record their conversation. He grabs the wine.

And heads down the hall.

As promised, the door is slightly ajar, which sends an irrational frisson of irritation through Illya. If Gaby _is_ an agent, she’s a sloppy one.

“Darling, do you think—” Nathan says in response to the door opening. He looks up from the pan he’s melting butter in. “Ah, wrong darling. Hello, Ian. Gaby’s downstairs trying to find the box she packed the table linens in.” He’s wearing a crisp white button-down, sleeves rolled up, a plain blue apron protecting it from the food.

“I brought wine,” Illya says with a smile.

“Let me see—” Nathan drops some minced garlic into the pan. He moves fluidly over the stove, pausing only to peer at the bottle Illya holds up for his inspection. “Very nice.”

“I’m glad it passes muster,” Illya says, watching from the corner of his eye the strong lines of Nathan’s forearms as he works.

“Indeed it does, thank you.” Nathan adds carrots and onions to the pan. “And thank you for letting us steamroll you into this. Ever since Gaby and I compared notes on the tall, handsome teacher we both knew…” He chuckles. “We were intrigued.”

Illya sets the bottle down on the far corner of the counter, out of the way. “I don’t see why. I’m not that interesting.”

Nathan adds in a few more vegetables and tosses the lot a few times. “I find that _very_ difficult to believe.”

Illya wishes he had something to do with his hands. He leans against the counter, palms curling around the edge. "You’re setting yourself up for disappointment,” he says. “I teach, I read. I go to the gym. I play chess. There’s not much else in my life.”

“There could be.” Nathan sets the pan down. He reaches out, smoothing his hand over Illya’s waist, telegraphing every motion. Illya could stop him, shift away at any time.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t _want_ to move away. He lets Nathan kiss him, chaste and warm and slow, while something warm unfurls in his chest. It’s been too, too long since Illya’s kissed anyone, and he briefly lets himself forget _why_.

Nathan ends the kiss with a small, satisfied smile playing around the corners of his lips that makes Illya want to pull him close again and see how that curl feels against his own mouth. “There, see?” Nathan asks, turning back to the range. “I’m not at all disappointed.”

There’s a burst of sound from the hall. Gaby comes bustling in, arms full of bright orange-and-white patterned fabric, and if Nathan was going to say anything else, it stays unspoken.

 

* * *

 

The dinner is good: salmon, grilled to perfection and served in a light tangy sauce, with sauteed mixed vegetables and wild grain rice on the side. Gaby and Illya make appropriately-appreciative noises while Nathan looks pleased over his own plate.

As the meal winds down, conversation resumes. “Do you enjoy teaching, Ian?” Nathan asks. “Gaby’s still new, so all I get from her is venting.”

Gaby makes a face at him and takes a sip of her wine.

“I do,” Illya replies truthfully. “It can be frustrating, but equally rewarding.”

“You must be doing something right,” Gaby offers. “Everyone at the school speaks of you very highly.”

Illya didn’t know that, if it’s the truth. “So how do you two know each other?” he asks, changing the subject.

“It’s a funny story, actually,” Nathan says. “Gaby used to work at a chop shop.”

Illya blinks. This hadn’t turned up in his research.

Gaby sits up in her seat. “Oh, are we doing this now?”

“No time like the present.” Nathan shrugs.

“...chop shop?” Illya asks.

“One of those places where stolen cars get stripped,” Gaby says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “My father was in debt to some nasty people... anyway, Napoleon comes in—”

“That would be me,” Nathan interjects.

Illya’s hand tightens on his dessert fork. “ _Napoleon?_ ”

“I know, it sounds preposterous, doesn’t it?” Gaby says. Nath– _Napoleon_ makes a face at her. “So Napoleon comes in because my father had gone missing and was supposed to testify against the crime syndicate he’d been indebted to… making me the best lead.”

“What I didn’t know was that she was already working for UNCLE – meanwhile, I was working for the CIA at the time...”

Illya gets to his feet, backing up, away from the table, getting his back to a wall. He’s heard of UNCLE – rumors, mostly, of a lean, efficient multinational team operating wherever it damn well pleased. It had been an _immense_ source of frustration for his former employers.

Gaby and Napoleon are still seated, hands empty and resting lax atop the table, ankles crossed. Positions calculated to telegraph a lack of threat.

“Why are you here?” Illya asks.

“Oh, Illya. Isn’t it obvious?” Gaby says. It sounds strange to hear someone speak his name aloud, after so long.

“We’re here to recruit you,” Napoleon replies.

Past the pounding of his pulse, Illya feels the information settling into place, fitting neatly with everything else he knows and has suspected. It should feel satisfying, to learn the answers he’d been looking for, but instead he finds a gnawing, empty kind of disappointment.

There is no Gabrielle Schmidt. There is no Nathan Teller. No clever shop teacher, no flirtatious antique dealer. Just two UNCLE agents, pursuing a mission objective.

“...what if I say no?” Illya asks, throat tight.

“We’ll be disappointed,” Gaby says.

Napoleon adds, “–but we’d respect it. You’ve built a fine life for yourself here. It’d be a pity to let that go to waste.”

“More of a pity to let _you_ go to waste,” Gaby interjects tartly. “But sure, we’d go along with it.”

“How _ever_ ,” Napoleon says, “maybe let us make our pitch first? There are many benefits to joining UNCLE...”

Illya lowers the hand holding the fork. “I can already guess what kind of _benefits_ you’re offering,” he says, more bitterly than he intended to.

“Now, hang on,” Napoleon says, forehead furrowing. “If you—”

It’s at this point that Illya notices the tiny red pinprick of light tracking over Napoleon’s shoulder. Gaby must spot it at the same moment, because she shouts, “Get down!”

And then all hell breaks loose.

 

* * *

 

The glass doors of the hutch have been shattered, the plates and cups and wine glasses inside demolished. The living room window is in pieces. After the first three shots, the gunfire had stopped, but they all know better than to think the shooter has given up.

“Is your name even Gaby?” Illya asks, crouched on the floor behind the overturned dining room table. The gash in his side shrieks with pain, but he ignores it.

Next to him, Gaby has retrieved the gun she had taped underneath. “Yep. But it’s Gabriella Teller, not Gabrielle Schmidt.”

“That is a very weak cover name,” Illya observes. He looks over at Napoleon. “Is your last name really Teller, too?” If it is, that carries implications that Illya isn’t ready to handle. Could they be _married?_

“It’s Solo,” Napoleon says. He uses the flat of a butter knife to see around the side of the bookcase he’s imperfectly tucked behind.

“ _Napoleon Solo?_ ” Illya doesn’t believe it.

“Our cover stories are close to our real histories, too.” Napoleon _also_ has his own gun, and Illya is irked by this. There are _innocent civilians_ in this building. “We wanted you to get to know _us_ , or as much as we could share. Especially if we were going to be working together.”

“Except I’m from Germany,” Gaby admits.

“I’m from New York,” Napoleon says. “And most of my thefts were in Europe.”

Illya snorts. “I heard UNCLE only poached the best and brightest.”

“Poached?” Gaby gives him an indignant look.

“Well, we are after _you_ ,” Napoleon retorts with a smirk. “Make of that what you will.”

“...do you think we can get to the kitchen?” Gaby asks.

Napoleon checks again. “I think we can try,” he says, and quick as a flash, Gaby scrambles past Illya into the next room. No bullets greet her transit.

They wait a moment. Then Napoleon darts from his position to take Gaby’s former place beside Illya behind the table.

“What you were saying, about _benefits—_ ” Napoleon starts.

“Shh,” Illya says, holding up one hand. “I think I heard someone in the hallway.”

Sure enough, there’s a familiar, muffled creak on the floorboards outside the apartment.

“Is the door still unlocked?” Illya whispers in the quietest possible register.

Gaby nods. She stands up, now blocked by the wall, and gets a fillet knife from the counter, slipping from kitchen to hallway so that she stands in the blind spot behind the door.

Someone knocks.

They all look at each other, incredulous.

Another knock. “...Gaby?” Rae asks, voice muffled. “Are you all right? I heard a crash.”

Illya thumps his head against the underside of the table, very quietly.

“Everything’s fine!” Gaby replies brightly. “I dropped a stack of dishes while I was cleaning up.”

“...oh. Okay, then. Please keep it down. We don’t want another noise complaint.”

“Sure thing!”

“Thank you!”

Illya can hear Rae moving away, back to her own apartment. He waits until he hears her door close, then darts across to the kitchen in a crouching run.

“How many do you think there are?” Gaby asks.

“Six or seven,” Illya hazards. Two for each of them, at least.

“What are the odds they’re going to raid the building, take hostages?” Napoleon asks.

A raid would be effective, but it would invite more attention than Illya thinks his old agency is prepared to manage. Especially if UNCLE is involved, which makes any firefight an ugly inter-agency tangle on foreign soil. “Low,” Illya replies. “But not zero. We should get out of here, find neutral ground.”

“I have an idea,” Gaby says. “But we need to get to the cars.”

“Let me handle that.” Napoleon makes a break for the kitchen. Two bullets fly through the living room window, and he stumbles to safety, a blooming red line against his upper arm.

“You’re hit,” Illya says, looking for something to staunch the wound.

“I noticed,” Napoleon retorts through gritted teeth, hissing as Illya ties a dish towel around his arm. It’s just a graze. “Grab me that paper towel, will you?”

Gaby gets it for him as he turns to the gas burner, dialing it up. He takes the whole roll and dips it into the flames, “What are you doing?” Gaby asks.

Napoleon holds the burning paper up to the smoke detector. “Getting backup,” he tells her.

 

* * *

 

The residents file into the parking lot in small groups, murmuring confusion to each other. Nura ferries her two small children out in their pyjamas, her husband following behind, glowering at no one in particular. Mrs. Nelson carries two cages in her hands, each covered with a quilted blanket that muffles the indignant cheeps coming from within.

“Do we know what apartment it is?” someone asks.

“No,” Illya tells them.

“Ms. Schmidt!” Mike asks, coming up to them. “What happened to your window?”

“I– I don’t know!” Gaby replies, eyes wide and guileless. Illya admires her for her brazenness while he scans the crowd and the surrounding area for anyone out of place.

And there, right on cue, comes the fire department, the massive red truck pulling up with a ear-splitting moan. Illya grabs Gaby’s hand and extricates her from any further questioning, heading towards his own vehicle. Napoleon follows, slipping through the crowd easily despite his size.

“I’m driving,” Gaby says. Illya gives her a baffled look. “Trust me,” she adds with a confident gleam in her eye. Illya relinquishes the keys.

“I’ll cover us.” Napoleon hops into the back bed of Illya’s truck, one hand on the gun in his coat pocket. “Watch the bumps, love,” he tells Gaby through the open partition window.

“I’ll do my best,” she says, turning the key in the ignition. Illya climbs into the cab and she pulls out of the parking space before he can reach for the seatbelt.

The crowd parts for them with a few cries of dismay, and then they’re off, out the back exit. Gaby hands Illya her gun as she blows through a four-way stop sign. He rolls down the window and keeps an eye on the road and the rearview mirror.

“Did you miss this?” she asks, over the sound of the wind through the windows.

“Not particularly,” Illya says. It’s only half a lie. There is a part of himself, long tucked-away, that’s waking up and stretching out, satisfied to be of _use_ again. It’s no longer paranoia when he’s racing away from pursuers intent on killing him.

 _Killing_ all _of them_ , he thinks. He has no doubts that taking down two UNCLE agents would be an added bonus to silencing a traitor. His hand tightens around the gun in his hand. He hasn’t held one in years. The familiar weight fits in his palm like holding the hand of an old lover, and he hates himself for it.

“I don’t want to join UNCLE,” he tells Gaby.

She shoots him an incredulous glance. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Fine,” he says, hearing the snappish tone in his voice and regretting it. “But I’m not going to change my mind.” He doesn’t want to go out into the field again. Not for the KGB, not for UNCLE, not for anyone.

A thin trickle of smoke starts issuing from the air vents as they reach the county line road. “ _Scheiße_ ,” Gaby mutters, “what—”

She’s not pushing the engine that hard. “I don’t—” Illya starts, then grabs the dash with his free hand as his vision starts to blur. “Oh, _hell_.”

“What?” Napoleon asks through the window. “What’s going on?”

Gaby’s listing, eyelids drooping. Illya fights through the drowsiness to grab the wheel, dropping the gun on the seat as he fumbles for the gearshift. Maybe if he can get it into park…

The last thing he sees is Gaby, slumped over in her seat as the tires run over the rumble strips on the side of the road.

And then the world goes gray and soft.

 

* * *

 

“... _ёб_ ,” Illya says, waking up. His head aches, temples throbbing with heat, eyes so over-sensitive that opening them is like admitting daggers of light into his skull.

“Don’t move,” Gaby says gently. Her voice is like steel wool over his eardrums.

He ignores her and sits up, groaning. She was right: it’s like he can feel every synapse in his skull stretching and then compressing with the change in position. He grits his teeth and focuses on his breathing.

“Where are we?” he asks eventually. The room they’re in is bare and nondescript, if unfinished. It could be a basement, with its concrete floor and unpainted sheetrock walls. “Where is Napoleon?” There’s one door out, and he’ll bet every penny from his last paycheck that it’s locked.

“I don’t know,” she says, in answer to both questions. Beneath the hem of the smart navy and white polka-dotted dress she’d worn for dinner, her knees are scraped, and there’s a fresh, ugly bruise on the underside of her arm, made visible when she tucks her disheveled hair behind her ear.

She doesn’t ask why they’re there or what their captors want; it’s what Illya would want, if he had a hostile agent locked up in a secure location. _Information_.

“Have you gotten a count?” he asks.

“Not yet.” They lapse into silence. Illya checks his pockets (nothing in them) and his boots (his razor is missing). He can see that Gaby’s hands are empty, as is the knife sheath around her thigh.

He looks away from her legs.

“You’re bleeding,” she tells him, pointing. He glances down, and yep, there’s blood seeping through his shirt, staining the waistline of his khakis.

“ _Tch_ , I’m fine,” he tells her, pulling up his shirttails to find the gauze bunched and half-stuck to the wound, the butterfly strips loose. With how terrible the rest of him feels, he hadn’t noticed the discomfort.

“When did that happen?” she asks.

“Sunday,” Illya tells her. “I… dispatched one of them.”

“So they might be one down,” she observes. “Nice work.”

Illya nods, fixing the dressing as best he can and standing, pacing out the small space they’re trapped in, scrutinizing the fixtures and corners. There’s no camera, no microphones as far as he can tell. He could prise open the power outlet in the wall and unscrew the single bulb in the ceiling fixture to be sure, but there’s no point to it.

“Look, Illya—” she starts.

“Is now the time to give me the recruitment spiel?” he interrupts irritably. If she and Napoleon hadn’t come for him, he wouldn’t _be here_.

“This isn’t…” She sighs. “Are you upset that we burst your little suburban bubble, or that we lied to you? Because if it’s the former, I’m sorry, I truly am. But if we hadn’t come along, someone else would have. From what I saw in your file, you were an incredible asset. Too good to let languish here… or to leave alive, if you know half as much about your former employers as I suspect you do.”

Illya turns his back on her, bracing his forearm against the wall and leaning his forehead against his wrist. She’s not wrong. It’s why he keeps everyone at a distance, insulates himself. Keeps everyone safe from the inevitable moment his past catches up to him.

“And if it’s the latter?” he asks. He has no stones to throw on this front, but he wants to see what she’ll say.

“Then I’m sorry for that, too.” He hears the scrape of her shoe against the concrete. “We were instructed to observe you, see if you were hiding a cache of files, or something else we could use.”

“There are no files,” he tells her in a mutter.

“I don’t _care_.” Heat creeps into her voice. “Because we decided we _liked_ you. We wanted you with us, on our team. We asked for clearance to recruit you.”

Ah. It must have been that communication that exposed them. The risk they took, exposing themselves not only to him but to any interested observers…

“Illya,” she says, laying a hand on his shoulder. When had she gotten so close? “We _like_ you. We want you with us.”

“On your team,” he says flatly.

“Well, yes,” she says, tugging on his arm so that he turns to face her. Her expression is open, as honest as he’s ever seen her. Her jaw tilts upwards. “And—”

Whatever she’s about to say next – whatever she’s about to _do_ next – gets interrupted by the door slamming open. Illya jerks away, face burning, hands clenched into fists as he braces for whatever comes next.

“Oh, pardon the interruption,” Napoleon says brightly. “I thought you might appreciate a rescue. But if you two need a moment, don’t let me stop you.” He leans against the doorway, arms crossed, the picture of disheveled insouciance.

“Oh, you beautiful bastard,” Gaby says, laughing, already rushing across the room to throw her arms around him. Napoleon picks her up and swings her around before setting her on the other side of the doorway.

“Well, Illya,” Napoleon says, one hand outstretched, “are you coming or not?”

 

* * *

 

_**Six Months Later** _

Illya’s new apartment building is larger than his last one; there had been more tenants to check out and there isn’t as much familiarity among the residents, but there’s a doorman and a night watchman he chats with, sometimes. He keeps to his security routine and has hacked the feeds to the cameras in the elevators, hallways, and parking lots, so he feels as secure as he’s ever going to.

He hits the gym on the first floor every other morning, showers and shaves, then has his pick of four coffee shops on his short commute. Wouldn’t do to establish too predictable a routine, but he prefers the cart outside the building where he works – as do his fellow instructors.

“Morning, Ian,” Hugo greets him from the end of the line.

“Good morning,” Illya replies, shifting his umbrella to hook over his elbow as he takes his place behind Hugo.

“How are you settling in? I hear you used to teach high school students, this must be a change from what you’re used to.”

Illya gives him a wry smile. “It is,” he admits. He’s chosen to keep his old alias here. It makes things easier, and there was no reason to change it. The worst anyone will find on Ian Peterson’s record is a hospital stay last spring and an unexpected early break of his old lease. He’d finished out the school year before transferring. “But teaching is teaching. You’d be surprised how many of the skills translate.”

Hugo laughs. “Maybe, maybe not.” The man in front of him finishes paying and he moves up to place his order.

As far as Illya knows, Hugo’s taught history at the university level for the last ten years. His new wife, Ariela, is five years older than him and does forensic accounting in the same building. They’d met over a succession of elevator rides that turned into flirting and then lunches and then dinners… it’s all very _cute_ , as Hugo has readily admitted. _I didn’t think a guy like me had any cute left in him_ , he’d told Illya once. _But you never know, eh?_

 _No, you never know_ , Illya had said.

Hugo waits while Illya gets his coffee and they go into the building together, taking the entrance next to the little tailor shop on the first floor. Hugo and Illya each swipe their cards to get up to the school level – Hugo’s on fifth, and Illya’s on sixth.

“Got any weekend plans?” Hugo asks.

“...I don’t know,” Illya replies honestly. He knows what information Hugo’s fishing for, knows that Hugo would love to have Illya over to dinner for a kind of double date, but it hasn’t happened yet.

To his relief, the elevator doors open. Hugo gives him wave as he steps off. “Later, Ian.”

“Later.” Illya enjoys the silence between floors, grounding himself before he has to face a room full of students.

When the doors open, Illya steps up to the desk and shows his ID badge, relinquishing his bag and his coat and his umbrella for scanning. “...you know we can’t let you keep this, right?” the security officer says, holding up the umbrella. He’s new. The name on his tag says “Franklin.” Illya makes a note to look him up in the school database when he has a free moment.

“You never do,” Illya replies with a smile.

“All right.” Franklin returns his coat and his bag, stowing the umbrella away. “Have a good day, sir.”

“You too.” The hallways here are narrow and well-lit, easily defensible but dreary. Illya has to walk sideways to pass people once or twice.

“Good morning,” Illya says, walking into the small, white-painted room he’s become familiar with over the last few weeks. The grey buildings he can see out the window are much duller than the bright foliage he’d have been able to see at his old job, but his new position has other benefits to recommend it.

The few young men and women already present return his greeting with pleasant or bleary smiles. He waits a few more minutes for the rest of his students to file in, unpacking his bag and queuing up the slideshow he has prepared for the day’s lesson.

When everyone is seated, Illya begins. “...I hope you’re all excited, because today we start the unit on exfiltration. Now, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a solid entry point means a solid exit, or that an exit will necessarily be equally difficult as the corresponding infiltration, but this is not so…” He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and turns to see a familiar face in the doorway. “...one moment. Anya, if you would please read the introduction to chapter three to the class?”

Anya rises from her seat, clearing her throat. Illya hurries to the door and slips out.

“Pardon the interruption,” Napoleon says. “But we’ve got a new assignment.”

“How long?” Illya asks.

“Five days.” Gaby shrugs. “Practically a smash and grab. But we thought we’d let you know before we left.”

“Thank you,” Illya tells them.

“Dinner when we get back?” Napoleon asks, though he doesn’t need to. It’s as close to a time-honored ritual as any of them ever get.

“I’m cooking this time.” Illya smiles over Napoleon’s token protests. “No arguments, it’s my turn.”

“It’s a date,” Gaby declares, then slips her hand into Illya’s, squeezing it surreptitiously. Napoleon leans in on the other side, a strong steady pressure all along Illya’s arm. It’s the most they’re allowed, these little gestures, while they’re all at work – Waverly had _insisted_ , after several incidents – but it’s good, for now.

Illya clears his throat, warmth suffusing his face. “Stay safe,” he tells them, even though he knows it’s futile.

“You too,” Napoleon replies, and then they move away, walking down the hallway arm in arm.

Illya returns to class.

 

 

 

 

* * * END * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kink from UNCLE prompt/inspiration: https://kinkfromuncle.dreamwidth.org/640.html?thread=627072#cmt627072
> 
> There may be ideas for a sequel, but I can make no promises at present as to its delivery - you may encourage, but please do not prod.


End file.
